[sdgserv]

Mike just started listening to your station..Very nice
Always wanted to broadcast, just never got it going

 

[Mike Walker]

Thanks sdgserv. It's all I've ever done. I'll turn 50 in a few weeks, and I've never had a job outside of radio. Weird, huh?

 

[olblueyez]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Uncle Erik /img/forum/go_quote.gif Alright, Mike. You talked me into it. I just pulled the trigger on a Sony XDR-F1HD; I am going to give HD a try. Most of my favorite stations around here have HD channels and I'd like to listen to them. Though I am going to go listen to a few LPs before tuning in the overnight jazz program on 88.1. On a very analog Scott 350B, no less. No matter how good the HD is, I'm keeping the turntable and the 350B!

Cant wait to hear what you think of that neat little tuner. I have an empty input and it would make a nice addition.

 

[windowman]

Mike,
I respect your position -- you have the MOST credibility to compare when you have the live feed! (As someone trained in the recording arts, I can relate).
I've participated in a few SINGLE blind tests, & those are hard enough! My average correct guesses rarely go over 60%. Having said that, I make "subjective, audiophile" listening & buying decisions 99.99% of the time.
So, I am of 2 minds on the whole obj/subj debate. I've never made a long-term mistake trusting my ears vs. something I've read anyway

 

[windowman]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Mike Walker /img/forum/go_quote.gif Hey Uncle Erik, I kept my turntables, too. In fact I sometimes play vinyl on my syndicated radio show "Saving the 70s" The Production Room Let me know what you think of the Sony!

2 comments:
1: the radio show's sonics are pretty awful. Even listening in the background, it has that "underwater gurgle" I associate with WAY too low a bit rate. Is there any way to hear it with higher quality? I didn't see any way to adjust it...

2: maybe I should start a new thread, but the new Sangean WFT-1 internet tuner seems like a much more versatile unit to investigate. All you need is an internet connection (wired or wireless) & you have access to the whole world of internet radio. The cost is higher (about $250 street), but I've love to compare it vs. the Sony

 

[Mike Walker]

The show is at 64kbps because most people find that to sound good. That's NOT how it sounds on radio stations! THEY receive a 320kbps file.

A note about sound quality...the FREE stream from Live 365 is mp3. If you are a "VIP" member, you can hear the stream in mp3 pro, which sounds MUCH cleaner, and has no commercials. This is true with ALL Live365 streams...there are two streams...a clean one for paid customers, and a lower quality free one for everybody else.

I produce the show uncompressed, entirely from cds, uncompressed, or losslessly compressed files (or occasionally vinyl). If stations played cds, they'd get (theoretically) even better sound quality, but these days most people prefer to download.

Most of my affiliates are AM or FM stations that stream online, though some are internet-only stations. You can reach their websites (and streams) through http://www.savingthe70s.com

Below is a link to a file in the quality level my affiliate stations receive it This is the first segment of the current show (not on the Live365 stream yet. Affiliate stations ALWAYS get to run it first!)

Right click and choose "save target as" to download the segment

http://www.theproductionroom.net/show08segment01.mp3

 

[windowman]

OK, this segment is much better. I still hear the artifacts, but they're affecting the very highest frequencies (the low bit rate problems start from the midrange & up).
What I don't get is why some internet radio stations at 128kbps don't have these problems. My favorite is WFUV (Fordham Univ in NY) at 90.7Mhz. Music perfectly aligned with my tastes, that I can listen to over my hi-fi without cringing. I suppose the reason is the usual individual care taken in processing the signal.

 

[Mike Walker]

Are you SURE you hear artifacts? I think to be sure you'd have to compare with the original cd. Do you have that song by Chicago on CD? THAT IS THE WAY HIGHS...i.e. cymbal crashes...sound on that cd...well, plus my little bit of sweetening so it will "pop" on the radio. I DO tweak the sound of every song, "remastering" for best sound. I don't give a crap if it sounds "just like the cd".

By the way, analog reel-to-reel tape wasn't exactly perfect at capturing high frequency transients. In fact, it is largely rpeferred today by many BECAUSE of the way it colors the sound...clipping the leading edge of transients, "squashing" the dynamics in a pleasing way, and generating a nice haze of harmonics that really weren't there.

I've worked in pro audio all my life, and to my ear, high bitrate mp3 is FAR more transparent than, say, a reel of tape on an Otari (or Revox) running at 15ips! Now the sound from the reel may be more "pleasing", but it AIN'T "transparent". It doesn't sound LIKE THE ORIGINAL!

But hell, I'm no purist when it comes to sound quality. I do a rock and roll oldies show. My goal is GOOD sound, not accurate sound. It's radio, after all...and it's rock and roll. I'll not tell you what exactly I do (it varies track to track), but I tweak MOST songs I use, and then use a standard "mastering rack" with plugins in Adobe Audition to even out levels, and add that final layer of "sheen".

Don't like what you hear? To be perfectly honest, if you're not the owner of a station carrying my show, or a listener to same, I really don't care

 

[windowman]

I'm sure of what I heard, but I'm NOT concluding anything yet. It's interesting: you correctly determined my comment on the "highest frequencies" was mostly pertaining to that Chicago song. I HAD the original LP, but traded it away (along with my entire LP collection) at the beginning of this year. So I can't comment as to what the "original" was like. My memory of the last time I played it is long gone. That's why I'm interested in your opinions, as you are in that rare spot of comparing at the source...
I also fully understand your reasons for "modifying" the originals for the real world, as well as your comments on open reel machines. I remember they were not transparent by any means. The "hot" machine I remember playing with when I was in training was the Ampex ATR-101. (It was in a class all its own, I thought).
I find your comments about hi-bit mp3 vs open reel encouraging, actually. It means that the problems I've been hearing are NOT inherent in the format itself.
Cheers!

 

[Mike Walker]

I actually have the Chicago song on LP, but it's a very old LP...I bought it about 1974. I'll give it a spin, however, and see what it sounds like.

As for reel to reel, it's really crappy from an accuracy point of view. But it sounds wonderful, doesn't it? Or at least it can, when used properly.

The first few years after I switched from analog to digital for production, I continued to record my voice first to an Otari MX5050 (1/4" two track open reel) at 15ips. That gave my voice the sound I loved, and was familiar with. Today, I can get the same kind of sound in the digital domain, minus the hiss.

I didn't mean to sound defensive. It's just that, as I'm sure you can understand, negative comments about my audio are like comments about "mom" for other people. And I liked. I DO care what you think!

"Cheers!" and thanks!

 

[jung]

Is there any other radio tuner that uses the same chips as Sony XDR-F1HD, but can force analog reception instead of HD?

 

[Mike Walker]

It isn't so much the "chips" as the firmware that runs on them, and how it's programmed. To my knowledge, nothing out there approaches the performance of the Sony, let alone having this level of performance PLUS "forced analog". However, for the truly brave, there are tweaks out there which will add this feature. Of course they void your warranty, and run the risk of turning your pretty little tuner into a paperweight!

 

[Publius]

I've had an X1HD for a few months now and I love it to death. Unfortunately HD reception is not always sharp with the local NPR station, and its HD and FM broadcasts are about a quarter of a second apart. Bleh. I also can't lock on to the college radio station 15 miles away, but that's a 3kw station that I didn't have much hope of getting anyway, and they put out a decent web stream.

I use it mostly for automated recording of classical music programs. The lower noise floor of an HD broadcast is a substantial improvement. I will say though that I'm pretty sure I can hear lossy encoding artifacts in the HD radio stuff, BUT: a lot of the material is encoded in a lossy format at the station to begin with, and so I may be hearing transcoding artifacts more than anything else.

In my experience, the dynamic range compression employed by the radio stations (including the classical one!) compromises the music more than the lossy encoding artifacts.

I'm able to listen to one AM HD Radio station, which is enough to tell me that AM HD Radio SUCKS.

 

[Mike Walker]

Publius, imho HD at 96kbps is pretty damn transparent (to the original source). 64kbps is short of "cd quality", with some artifacts audible if you listen for them. But still with impressive clarity, lack of distortion, and noise. 48kbps STILL sounds better to me than most analog FM stereo because of the low noise floor, though artifacts have fewer places to "hide". Still, stereo separation is wide open, background noise is non-existant (unless it was present in the original program, of course. Remember there is some noise in EVERY recording, because there is some noise in EVERY room, and microphones pick that up. Not to mention hiss from analog tape, etc.) I agree that at the bitrates used in AM HD, artifacts can be simply awful. I've herad only one recording of AM HD that sounded as good (to these ears) as wideband analog AM stereo (or mono, for that matter)...WOR in New York. Since they've been HD longer than any other AM station, perhaps they've learned some tricks. On the air-check that was sent to me by a friend, I actually heard almost no artifacts, and wide-open stereo. Pretty impressive for 32kbps. And also pretty rare. I haven't heard what I would classify as good audio from any other AM HD station...the artifacts are just too enormous.

 

[MatsudaMan]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Mike Walker /img/forum/go_quote.gif Sorry Dude, but SCIENCE tells another story! Double-blind listening tests conducted during the development of HDC (the HD Radio codec) don't "suggest" that it's as transparent at 96kbps as mp3 at 320kbps. THEY PROVE IT! They also prove that at 96kbps, listeners CAN'T TELL THE DIFFERENCE between coded and uncoded content. A null test can PROVE that almost nothing is taken out, by preserving only the "difference" between unencoded, and encoded. HD Radio, and the codecs used, weren't arrived at overnight. They're the retult of MUCH testing, and MUCH double-blind listening. You are aware that, going into a test, merely believing that mp3 at 320kbps will sound better will MAKE IT SOUND BETTER if you know what you're listening to/comparing. That's why truly scientific testing never asks the listener "which sounds better, the mp3 or the HD Radio", etc. There are two souces...source a, and source b. There's a third option...source x, which is a or b. The listener chooses whether they think x is a or b. "Which sounds better" doesn't enter into it, because if they can't reliably point out whether x is a or b, they've proven that they heard no difference!

Dude, these dbt test were done on normal people who can't hear the difference between a crappy car stereo and a proper hi-fi. They've done dbt test on people who couldn't tell the difference between a strad and a 500 dollar fiddle. Most people can't tell the difference between good and bad orchestras or bands because they aren't musicians and just don't have the ability to discern. Most people aren't very musical. Most people are who make up these dbt tests. Science is not the answer when it comes to music. These dbt tests are very accurate at pointing out the obvious: most people can't tell the difference! Big discovery freakin discovery goes to the smart "scientists"!!!